Engagement Opportunities

Have your say on physical health checks for people with severe mental illness

It is really important for people to look after their physical health and sometimes this doesn’t happen as much as it should. This is particularly an issue for people whose main experience of health services are with mental health services as this is not their main area of expertise.

We would like everyone with severe mental ill health to have a check on their physical health every year. The definition of severe mental illness is:

schizophrenia

bipolar affective disorder

other psychoses

people on lithium therapy.

This will help identify and deal with any side effects of medication or other health problems such as diabetes so they can be treated before they develop too much. It should also help people identify what they can do to look after their health and wellbeing.

The physical health checks will include things like blood pressure, cholesterol, how active people are and reviewing medication. You may have had a similar one in the past from your GP or practice nurse.

We’d like to know what you think about physical health checks so we can plan the best way of organising them and what other factors we need to consider.

Improving access survey for public

We are keen to seek the views of local people in Devon, Plymouth and Torbay about how we can further improve access to GP appointments. Since the service was launched nationally in October 2018, we are now keen to find out people’s views on these hours and if they are in the most appropriate locations.

We have prepared a short and confidential survey to gather views that will take no more than 5 minutes to complete. It will give patients the opportunity to tell us about when they would like to be able to access GP appointments and where they would be willing to travel to access them.

We will also share the link with the Devon PPG network and ask them to contact practices directly to discuss whether they could complete paper copies of the survey with patients face to face while they are in the waiting room.

If you would like printed copies of the survey sent to you, please contact susan.pearce11@nhs.net with details about how many you want and who you would like them posted to.

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About Us

NHS NEW Devon CCG - Northern, Eastern and Western Devon CCG is one of the largest in the country with a registered population of 882,800 served by 116 member practices. It is organised on a three locality basis, ensuring the CCG will be responsive to the needs of local people whilst benefitting from economies of scale where things only need to be done once. Through our vision, mission and core strategies we will place patients and public at the heart of commissioning. We have enshrined this in our constitution and in our organisational design principles.